


brave new world

by feyluke



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: I Was Drunk When I Wrote This, M/M, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), dark stucky guide me through my writers block
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 06:15:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13653147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyluke/pseuds/feyluke
Summary: story prompt: "there was a ring in his teacup…"





	brave new world

**Author's Note:**

> story prompt: there was a ring in his teacup…
> 
> so in my world post-winter soldier bucky uses colour psychology and symbolism to process things around him, and i got a bit carried away with it in this

Two people walk into a restaurant. 

They sit down. They look over the menus and start with water and wine. Sometimes they’re waiting for their food; sometimes they’re eating; sometimes they haven’t even ordered yet. They might be a seasoned couple, or new. Things might be going well or terrible or just okay. They might just be friends; maybe they’re already married. 

And so on, and so forth. The variables are dynamic and don’t really matter. 

The constant: A glass of wine appears with a ring at the bottom that shifts the relationship somehow. The kicker: It’s someone else’s ring. 

There is relief. Disappointment. Euphoria. Claustrophobia. A hundred different outcomes play out. Screaming. Silence… Etc. 

The second constant: The couple pays the bill. They leave the restaurant a changed unit.

It’s a dependable cliche for shows and books. A quick and efficient way to get the relationship arc to move, and characters to confront truths and decisions. 

 

It’s a stupid cliche, though. Embarrassing and inconvenient for everyone involved. Mostly, the poor sap whose been killing himself over this proposal that has suddenly gone terribly wrong. 

And anyway, Bucky never asked to face “truths.”

 

Here’s the truth: Steve is Bucky’s best friend and his brother. They’ve gone to war together, strengthening a bond he had no idea could have been any stronger. They’ve died and come back to life and gone through hell and found each other again. One thread of sanity in an insane future existence that feels like a Aldous Huxley novel. 

Here’s the goddamned truth: Steve is a lifeline to remind him he’s a real, living, breathing human being who was born and had a family and is _still_ , somehow, 70-odd years later, a real, living human being. 

A more succinct truth: In this lifetime, in this point on the narrative timeline, Steve is Bucky’s anchor.

 

If he had to choose a common narrative device to prompt a change in their relationship and how they view each other, he wouldn’t have picked the “wrong table” engagement ring. Personally, Bucky’s a sucker for the we-have-to-pretend-to-be-a-couple-for-reasons trope. Now that he’s thinking about it, it would actually make more sense for them.

 

On that note, another cliche: He wouldn’t change a damn thing.

 

In any case, there they are. 

And there the ring is, sitting at the bottom of his teacup. 

 

It was Bucky’s idea to try out the little tea cafe. 

He likes tea - mint is _great_ for his headaches - and Steve likes antiques (go figure). When Pepper mentioned the little hole-in-the-wall cafe that used antique teacups as its gimmick, Bucky had a feeling it would become a Good Place for Steve and him.

Probably Bucky’s favourite part of his “recovery process” - as his psychiatrist likes to call it - is this: Wandering around New York and exploring all the new places and things with his childhood best friend. When most of your day is spent unsure if you’re a human or a machine, it’s nice to do idiotically mundane things like wander the streets of New York and grab some tea. 

It’s so… human.

And Steve is just so damned happy to simply spend time with him. In any way. 

It’s weird. But. It’s validating. And being validated is apparently Good. A machine doesn’t have a need to be validated.

 

He’s formed a pretty bad habit of stealing mementos from such outings. His bed stand currently houses a purple cloth napkin with gold stitching from a jazz club they checked out last Thursday and a weird hollow plastic spoon from a burger place called McDonalds. 

Among other things.

(Other things include a note from Steve: _“Going for a run with Sam. There’s bacon in the fridge :) - S”_ )

 

Validation feels so freakin’ good. Mint tea is so freakin’ good. 

But tell that to the shell-shocked buzz cut at table 2. Thanks for nothing validation and mint tea.

Steve’s face is… concerned. Bucky would put money down that Steve is internally screaming about the poor sap whose proposal has been botched by the waiter. 

Anyway, the teacup has roses on it. Well, ain’t that just the cliche cherry on the top. Bucky picks it up and counts the roses: 12. He can’t help it. He laughs.

 

A memory: he’s 16, perhaps 17. There’s this girl he’s been sweet on. No name surfaces. There is blonde hair and blue eyes. She was taller than him. The florist told him that 12 roses send a message to the recipient: “Be mine.” “I love you.” 

Red, of course, symbolizes romantic love. 

This entire spectacle (Steve is now apologizing profusely to some guy in Crocs while a horror-stricken woman stares into the distance behind him) with the ring and 12-freaking-roses would be a scene written by a writer who thinks they’re clever - should be a scene that would have Bucky sitting here and rethinking his relationship with Steve. Some big revelation. The roses screaming _We are red and can’t be ignored! Be bold, be quick, make a decision! There are 12 of us!_

 

(Okay, maybe he’s obsessing over the number 12 a bit.)

 

Everything about this is screaming at him to pay attention, and other than the memory of the roses, Bucky feels… pretty much the same. 

 

It must be all sorted out, because Steve sits back down and they roll their eyes at each other.

“Hey,” Bucky says. “Remember that girl I got a bouquet of roses for?”

Steve huffs. “Narrow it down a bit for me there, buddy.”

“She was blonde, blue eyes. She had 3 older brothers so she was kind of scrappy.” More is coming back now. “I think she was a proxy for you, actually. Only difference was she was taller than me.”

“A proxy, eh?”

 

_Two people walk into a restaurant. Another person’s ring ends up at the bottom of a glass. There is a big revelation. They walk out a changed unit._

Is it a revelation if you always knew it, though? Waiting for the right moment? Is the relationship really changed if this was always a part of the trajectory?

 

“A little bit, yeah.”

They’re grinning at each other. He can feel his face - it’s so damn _warm_. Probably freakin’ red like those 12 freakin’ roses. Bucky can’t believe how stupid this is. 

 

He nicks the teacup on their way out.


End file.
